Nushell 0.100.0

Nushell, or Nu for short, is a new shell that takes a modern, structured approach to your command line. It works seamlessly with the data from your filesystem, operating system, and a growing number of file formats to make it easy to build powerful command line pipelines.

Today, we're releasing version 0.100.0 of Nu. In addition to being a major milestone, this release adds two new operators for working with strings, fixes division and modulo quirks, improves plugin management, and includes a very large number of other minor improvements and fixes.

Where to get it

Nu 0.100.0 is available as pre-built binaries or from crates.io. If you have Rust installed you can install it using cargo install nu.

As part of this release, we also publish a set of optional plugins you can install and use with Nu. To install, use cargo install nu_plugin_<plugin name>.

Nushell 0.100.0
Where to get it
Table of contents
Highlights and themes of this release [toc]
Changes [toc]
Hall of fame [toc]
All breaking changes [toc]
Full changelog [toc]

Highlights and themes of this release [toc]

Cheers to a century! [toc]

We wish to express our heartfelt gratitude and congratulations to all of our contributors and users on releasing version 0.100.0! Thanks for sticking with us and making Nushell great. Here's to a hundred more! 🎉

After this release, we will be switching to a 6-week release schedule instead of our current 4-week one. This will allow us to focus more on making and merging changes, and giving major changes room to breathe.

`like` and `not-like` operators [toc]

With #14072, this release adds two "new" operators: like and not-like. These operators are alternative forms of the preexisting =~ and !~ operators, respectively. The only reason to use one form over the other is preference. For example, people familiar with SQL may prefer using like and not-like. In the future, there is a chance that the shorter forms may be removed, but there are no plans to do so yet, if at all.

Division, floor division, and `mod` [toc]

Breaking change

See a full overview of the breaking changes

In #14157, several changes were made to the division related operators to make them more consistent.

Division

First, division between two integers used to be able to return either an int or a float value even though the type signature claimed the result would always be a float.

(1 / 2 | describe) == float
(2 / 2 | describe) == int

This release changes division between any two types to always return a float except if the left hand side is a filesize or duration and the right hand side is an int or float.

(1 / 2 | describe) == float
(2 / 2 | describe) == float
(1KB / 1KB | describe) == float
(2sec / 2sec | describe) == float

# There is no floating point representation for filesizes and durations,
# so truncating division is used in this case.
(5B / 2) == 2B
(2sec / 2.0) == 1sec

Floor division

Second, floor division now does automatic float promotion. That is, if one of the operands is a float, and the other is an int or float, then the result will be a float. This matches the behavior of other operators like addition and multiplication which do float promotion as well. It also avoids potential overflows when trying to convert a large magnitude float into an int.

# Before
(1 // 1 | describe) == int
(1 // 1.0 | describe) == int
(1.0 // 1.0 | describe) == int

# After
(1 // 1 | describe) == int
(1 // 1.0 | describe) == float
(1.0 // 1.0 | describe) == float

Additionally, the previous implementation of floor division performed unnecessary clamping which has been fixed with this release. So, results should now be more accurate.

`mod`

In previous releases, the implementation of mod was based off of truncating division even though Nushell does not have a truncating division operator. This release changes mod to be based off of floor division so that mod and floor division in combination can satisfy the division rule:

let quotient = $n // $d
let remainder = $n mod $d
$n == $quotient * $d + $remainder

If the signs of the divisor and dividend are the same, then the result of mod will be the same as before. However, if the signs are not the same, then the result of mod will be different compared to before to satisfy the division rule.

# Before
let q = 8 // -3   # -3
let r = 8 mod -3  # 2
8 == $q * -3 + $r # false

# After
let q = 8 // -3   # -3
let r = 8 mod -3  # -1
8 == $q * -3 + $r # true

This matches the behavior of Python's // and % operators which were the original inspiration.

Otherwise, the implementation of all the division related operators has been improved to account for overflow. Rather than silently clamping or overflowing, the operators will now create an error in these cases.

`plugin list` improvements [toc]

Breaking change

See a full overview of the breaking changes

The plugin list command has been changed in #14085 to consider both the plugins currently present in the engine state as well as the plugins stored in the registry file. Changes made by plugin add and plugin rm should now be more obvious.

As part of this change, the is_running column has been replaced by a status column, which now displays many possible states a plugin can be in:

added: The plugin is present in the plugin registry file, but not in the engine.
loaded: The plugin is present both in the plugin registry file and in the engine, but is not running.
running: The plugin is currently running, and the pid column should contain its process ID.
modified: The plugin state present in the plugin registry file is different from the state in the engine.
removed: The plugin is still loaded in the engine, but is not present in the plugin registry file.
invalid: The data in the plugin registry file couldn't be deserialized, and the plugin most likely needs to be added again.

running always has high priority as a state, so other statuses won't be visible if a plugin is currently running. This means that

# 0.99.0
plugin list | where is_running

can now always be replaced by:

# 0.100.0
plugin list | where status == running

In case you want to avoid loading the plugin registry file (e.g. for performance reasons), you can now use the --engine flag to do so. Similarly, the --registry flag will only display the contents of the registry, without comparing them against the state of the engine (but all plugins will appear as added). The --plugin-config flag is now supported to allow use of a separate plugin registry file, identically to the other plugin commands.

Changes [toc]

Additions [toc]

`history import` [toc]

Thanks to @qfel in #13450, this release adds the history import command. Running this command takes the history from the alternate history file format and imports it into the currently configured history file format. For example, to migrate from plain text to sqlite:

# Current format is plain text
# $env.config.history.file_format == plaintext

# Change the file format. Make sure to set this in your config if you want to persist this change.
$env.config.history.file_format = 'sqlite'

# Import the old history to the new format. It will create a backup if necessary.
history import

You can also pipe new history entries into history import, and they will be added to your history file. See help history import for some examples.

`catch` error record [toc]

In #14082, two additional columns were added to the error record passed to catch blocks/closures:

json: a string containing the error data as JSON.
rendered: a string containing the pretty formatted error message, roughly the same as you would see in your terminal.

`url split-query` [toc]

This release adds a new url split-query command in #14211 thanks to @Bahex. It is the counterpart to url build-query and splits a url query string into its different parameters. It returns a table with two columns: key and value.

`help commands` and `scope commands` [toc]

The help commands and scope commands now output an is_const column indicating whether a command can be used in a parse-time constant context (#14125).

`ps -l` [toc]

On macOS, ps -l now lists the start_time of the processes. Windows and Linux already listed a start_time column (#14127).

`url join` and `url build-query` [toc]

Thanks to @adaschma in #14073, url build-query now allows list values in the parameter record. For example:

{ a: [1 2], b: 3 } | url build-query
# a=1&a=2&b=3

Also, thanks to @Bahex in #14239, url join and url build-query now support table values for params:

{
    "scheme": "http",
    "username": "usr",
    "password": "pwd",
    "host": "localhost",
    "params": [
        ["key", "value"];
        ["par_1", "aaa"],
        ["par_2", "bbb"],
        ["par_1", "ccc"],
        ["par_2", "ddd"],
    ],
    "port": "1234",
} | url join

http://usr:pwd@localhost:1234?par_1=aaa&par_2=bbb&par_1=ccc&par_2=ddd

`touch --no-deref` [toc]

Thanks to @Dorumin in #14214, a new --no-deref flag was added to touch. Providing this flag will make touch not follow symlinks.

`length`

Thanks to @sgvictorino in #14224, the length command now supports binary values as input and returns the number of bytes.

`stor` [toc]

stor now supports list and table inputs thanks to @friaes in #14175.

`to text --no-newline` [toc]

In #14158, the --no-newline/-n flag was added to to text. Providing this flag disables the trailing new line added to the output.

[a] | to text    # "a\n"
[a] | to text -n # "a"

[a b] | to text    # "a\nb\n"
[a b] | to text -n # "a\nb"

`open --raw` [toc]

After #14141, open --raw now sets the appropriate content-type in the pipeline metadata for nu, nuon, and json files.

`help` [toc]

The help output for commands now shows the command type in parenthesis after the command name (i.e., plugin, alias, or custom). Currently, the command type is not displayed for built-in, keyword, or known external commands (#14165).

A new option has been introduced for table rendering by @zhiburt in #14070. With $env.config.table.footer_inheritance = true, if one of the inner rendered tables trips the footer mode setting to show a footer at the bottom of the table, all of the outer tables will also have footers rendered.

Function key keybindings [toc]

Thanks to @hacker-DOM in #14201, the function keys from F21 to F35 are now allowed in key bindings. Note that for the keys to work, support for the kitty keyboard protocol needs to be enabled in your config ($env.config.use_kitty_protocol) and your terminal also needs to support the protocol.

Breaking changes [toc]

Lone, leading pipe in closures [toc]

Breaking change

See a full overview of the breaking changes

Currently, a leading pipe character is allowed for pipelines in Nushell:

| ls

The closure syntax also uses pipe characters, so the parser previously allowed some cursed code:

{ |a $a }
{ |a, b $a $b }

Thanks to @sgvictorino in #14095, unmatched leading pipe characters in closures are no longer allowed to prevent this potential ambiguity.

{ |a| $a } # ok
{ |a $a }  # now errors

`url parse` [toc]

Thanks to @Bahex in #14211, the params field output for url parse is now a table with a key and value column instead of a record to match the new url split-query command (see above).

`http` `--max-time` [toc]

With #14237, the --max-time flag for the http family of commands now takes a duration value instead of a integer number of seconds. Thanks to @alex-kattathra-johnson for making this change!

Empty rest matches [toc]

If a list rest pattern match ended up being empty, the match variable would previously be null. In #14246 thanks to @CharlesTaylor7, the match variable will instead be an empty list if no matches are found.

# Before
match [] {
    [..$rest] => ($rest == null) # true
}

# After
match [] {
    [..$rest] => ($rest == []) # true
}

Case insensitive sorting [toc]

The method used for case insensitive comparisons and sorting has been updated/improved this release in #14255 thanks to @132ikl. This will affect the output of sort -i, uniq -i, get -s, find -i, str contains -i, str starts-with -i, str ends-with -i, tab completions, and probably a few other commands (this list is not exhaustive).

`ansi clear_entire_screen_plus_buffer` [toc]

In #14184, ansi clear_entire_screen_plus_buffer now returns an ansi code that clears both the screen and scrollback buffer. Previously, it would only clear the scrollback buffer. In addition, a new clear_scrollback_buffer entry has been added to the ansi command. This will clear only the scrollback buffer.

Deprecations [toc]

AST evaluation engine [toc]

The NU_DISABLE_IR environment variable as well as the AST evaluation engine itself is planned to be removed in the next release, and is now deprecated. We consider the IR evaluator to now be mature enough that it's time to stop maintaining the old evaluator.

> module foo { export alias bar = ^echo }
> use foo
> foo bar baz
# 0.99.0:
bar baz
# 0.100.0:
baz

Panic fixes [toc]

A parser panic regarding redirections was fixed in #14035 thanks to @Kither12.

Hall of fame [toc]

Thanks to all the contributors below for helping us solve issues and improve documentation 🙏

author	title	PR
@atahabaki	upgrade bracoxide to v0.1.4 (fixes #14290)	#14296
@fdncred	allow != for polars	#14263
@sgvictorino	don't include import path in args to aliased external commands	#14231
@sgvictorino	correctly parse table literals as lists	#14226
@WindSoilder	fix $env.FILE_PWD and $env.CURRENT_FILE inside use	#14101
@fdncred	make adding newlines with `to text` more consistent and opt-out-able	#14158
@PhotonBursted	Defensive handling of errors when transposing	#14096
@sgvictorino	error when closure param lists aren't terminated by `\|`	#14095
@sgvictorino	fix error when exporting constants with type signatures in modules	#14118
@fdncred	try and fix osc633 escaping yet again	#14140
@IanManske	Fix return setting last exit code	#14120
@WindSoilder	`use` command: Don't create a variable with empty record if it doesn't define any constants	#14051
@sgvictorino	run ensure_flag_arg_type for short flag values	#14074

All breaking changes [toc]

#14275 Fix the order of preference for VISUAL and EDITOR
#14211 Url split query
#14242 No longer autoload deprecated-dirs
#14255 Switch to unicase's to_folded_case
#14157 Div, mod, and floor div overhaul
#14246 Empty rest args match should be an empty list
#14237 Change --max-time arg for http commands to use Duration type
#14085 Make plugin list read state from plugin registry file as well

Nushell 0.100.0

Where to get it

Table of contents

Highlights and themes of this release [toc]

Cheers to a century! [toc]

like and not-like operators [toc]

Division, floor division, and mod [toc]

Division

Floor division

mod

plugin list improvements [toc]

Changes [toc]

Additions [toc]

history import [toc]

catch error record [toc]

url split-query [toc]

help commands and scope commands [toc]

ps -l [toc]

url join and url build-query [toc]

touch --no-deref [toc]

length

stor [toc]

to text --no-newline [toc]

open --raw [toc]

help [toc]

$env.config.table.footer_inheritance [toc]

Function key keybindings [toc]

Breaking changes [toc]

Lone, leading pipe in closures [toc]

url parse [toc]

http --max-time [toc]

Empty rest matches [toc]

Case insensitive sorting [toc]

ansi clear_entire_screen_plus_buffer [toc]

Deprecations [toc]

AST evaluation engine [toc]

Removals [toc]

std/dirs [toc]

Bug fixes and other changes [toc]

return, break, and continue [toc]

External command bareword arguments [toc]

to text [toc]

to nuon [toc]

use [toc]

transpose [toc]

Constants with type signatures [toc]

Short flag type checking [toc]

Cell path pretty printing [toc]

in $range [toc]

into datetime [toc]

ansi -l [toc]

join [toc]

Table literals as arguments [toc]

clear [toc]

Prefer $env.VISUAL over $env.EDITOR [toc]

Fix handling of exported external aliases [toc]

Panic fixes [toc]

Hall of fame [toc]

All breaking changes [toc]

Full changelog [toc]

`like` and `not-like` operators [toc]

Division, floor division, and `mod` [toc]

`mod`

`plugin list` improvements [toc]

`history import` [toc]

`catch` error record [toc]

`url split-query` [toc]

`help commands` and `scope commands` [toc]

`ps -l` [toc]

`url join` and `url build-query` [toc]

`touch --no-deref` [toc]

`length`

`stor` [toc]

`to text --no-newline` [toc]

`open --raw` [toc]

`help` [toc]

`$env.config.table.footer_inheritance` [toc]

`url parse` [toc]

`http` `--max-time` [toc]

`ansi clear_entire_screen_plus_buffer` [toc]

`std/dirs` [toc]

`return`, `break`, and `continue` [toc]

`to text` [toc]

`to nuon` [toc]

`use` [toc]

`transpose` [toc]

`in $range` [toc]

`into datetime` [toc]

`ansi -l` [toc]

`join` [toc]

`clear` [toc]

Prefer `$env.VISUAL` over `$env.EDITOR` [toc]